A candidate for "worst jobs"

Have you ever caught that Discovery Channel's program about the world's worst jobs - current and historically? Remember the guy washing those new woolen garments in the pool of stale urine...for hours on end?

I think the revolving door of judges charged with presiding over Saddam Hussein's trial should at least get honorable mention on the show.

Yesterday, chaos exploded yet again in the court as the latest judge, Raouf Rasheed Abdel-Rahman, ejected one of Saddam's co-defendents and one of his lawyers for not playing nicely. Following that, Saddam's entire defense team walked out and Saddam followed with the obligatory "Down with America" quip.

The judges for this trial have been killed, bullied and threatened. They have to try to run a trial in which the defense's strategy is apparently to disrupt the proceedings ad infiinitum in hopes everyone will get so old they will have forgotten what the trial was about in the first place. It's a special kind of hell for judges, I think: sort of like that special hell for basketball referees where every game is coached by battlin' Bobby Knight and every player is Dennis Rodman.

I think Abdel-Rahman made a good start toward regaining control of the court. Anyone who disrupts the proceedings should be immediately removed - the more forcefully, the better. Focus fully on the witnesses to Saddam's atrocities and any defense witnesses who dispute that testimony and make sure Saddam shuts the hell up until it's his turn to speak. He's not a power broker in these proceedings - he's just another scumbag. If necessary, wheel him into the courtroom strapped to an appliance dolly complete with hockey mask and ball gag ala Hannibal Lecter.

It's not really like the outcome of the trial is in doubt, either. Let's see: firm evidence of hundreds of thousands killed and buried; tens of thousands turtured and raped; thousands of Kurdish men, women and children gassed. That's lots of evidence stacked against Saddam's "you have no right to try me!"

So, for the sake of international observers, Abdel-Rahman is obliged to sit in the court and endure the rhetorical and physical attacks against him, all for the sake of a megalomaniacal monster. Ain't life grand?

So come on Discovery Channel, throw the judge a bone here. It's little enough recognition for a thankless and perilous job.